A sex offender fugitive from Colorado was arrested at a Morristown grocery store on Thursday morning by the U.S. Marshals' Smoky Mountains Fugitive Task Force.

Pete Custer, 65, was No. 8 on Colorado's Top 100 Most Wanted Sex Offender Fugitive List. He had been on the run since February of 2017, authorities said.

In 1991, Custer was convicted in Los Angeles County, California, on the charge of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under the age of 14. He spent years in and out of prison in California before fleeing to Colorado, where he was arrested and imprisoned on additional charges.

Pete Custer(Photo: Provided / Colorado Bureau of Investigation)

After being released from prison in Colorado, Custer fled his term of parole. The search for Custer went cold in Key West, Florida, where he obtained an identification card with a general delivery address in 2017, according to a news release from the U.S. Marshals Service.

Authorities resumed searching for Custer earlier this month, and arrested him without incident Thursday. The release credited the cooperation of Colorado's Violent Offender Task Force and the Smoky Mountains Fugitive Task Force in East Tennessee. The U.S. Postal Inspectors, the Blount County Sheriff's Office and the Hamblen County Sheriff's Office also were "instrumental" in the arrest, the release states.

Custer now faces sex offender registry charges in Tennessee in addition to the charges he already had in Colorado and California.